I don't doubt for a minute that there's some kind of alpha geek thing going on with a lot of interviews. But it's also a reflection of the fact we don't have a widely-accepted accreditation body that can vouch for people.
As the infamous CodingHorror post points out, an awful lot of programmers can't actually program. That means interviews have to check for more than culture fit. It also drives extremely high selectivity, and when you know you'll be rejecting 90% of your applicants it becomes that much harder to give everyone a smooth and welcoming interview.
Of course, none of this deals with the problem that (as Sahat found) many software interviews don't actually check for relevant skills. That's just stupid.
When getting licensed in a new state (ie move from Montana to California), you just need to submit basic paperwork, background check/get finger printed and then you are licensed for the new state (no need to retake an exam). All these comments seem to indicate nurses have insanely high selective pressures to weed out people who suck. It's really, really not the case. The stories I hear about certain nurses who completely lack common sense are astounding.
When my sister gets a new position (even when she started travel nursing after only 1 year of experience), she has a phone interview with a company hired by the hospital to find travel nurses. They may or may not contact her previous employers/references and then she finds out within a day or two if she has the job. It typically takes her 1 week to get a new assignment, 3 weeks tops if she is being exceptionally picky and trying to work in a specific area/hospital. That's all there is to it.
She's gone through this process about 6 times in the past two years (I've even seen her do a phone interview while at a wine tasting! -- and she was offered the position) and she rarely stresses about these interviews as they are not technical.
Every time credentials come up with respect to this industry there are a whole bunch of people who complain that credentials are meaningless because people can just cheat or coast their way through. They go so far as to include CS degrees themselves in that category. What makes you think the education and credentials for nurses are so much better than for software engineers that nurses can be hired based on credentials and software engineers cannot?
Board certification is not a legal requirement in any jurisdiction I am aware of. The licensure tests and board certifications are separate, and the former is generally taken very close to when the doctor, lawyer, or nurse graduates from their program and completes their internship period.
> The second is that licensing, certification, and recertification are functions of state government, not voluntary industry guidelines.
Yes and no. State governments decide what they will recognize, but industry provides the training. Some of the shit that counts as "continuing education" for the medical profession is little better than what you get at DeVry for programmers.
That said, at least these professions have strong professional associations that birddog state licensing boards to keep the bullshit out. My original comment, in fact, was motivated by IEEE and ACM's attempts to do the same for software engineers and the way the industry seems to be laughing at their efforts.
License requirements are by state, but yes, there is a licensing process.
> Does she have to have a certain number of continuing education hours every year?
It depends on the state, but yes, some states require a minimum number of hours of education to renew a license.
